Cataclysm without LFG?

I think a few of you might have guessed by now that I am not a huge fan of the LFG system. The priciple reasons being:

1: It is designed so good players will run morons through the game.
2: It encourages players to behave like fuckwits.
3: It kills any hope of finding good players on your own realm.
4: It is devoid of any game immersion.

That last one is the killer for me in Cataclysm. The three new 5 mans in patch 3.3 that came in with the LFG system, ie the Ice Crown 5 mans, were the first new instances to be run using only the LFG system. And what they were was an exercise in sprint management. I did them on the night the patch dropped. I had a great group of top players. And we literally sprinted through it, working it out as we went. Afterwards I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything about the run. There was no involvement in the lore, which was amazing considering that these runs were in Ice Crownn for fucks sake. We just blew through it.
I think that the physical act in game of going to a dungeon, grouping up outaide, waiting for other players to come, maybe even asking someone there if they want to come with you, all these things are a deep immersion-style preperation for doing an instance. They make you feel that you are about to go on an adventure. Couple that with the LFG system and you may as well just sit there and play tic tac toe while waiting for 5 players to be found.
So the question is whether in Cataclysm it will be possible to run the new content by finding other players to do it, alla the old style. Or will the hassle of doing this be just so great that your only option be the use of the dungeon finder. I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll give it a try at least.

They’ve announced that you will not be able to queue for a dungeon before you discover its entrance, in Cataclysm. They’ve said that there will be ‘attunements’, likely a quest that you get and hand in right at the entrance so that they’re sure you know where the heck the graveyard is.

Maybe the best way to handle this is that you cannot queue for a dungeon through LFG unless you have found the entrance to it. That way it will force people to know where an instance in relation to the rest of the WoW world before you can queue.

Combining that with requiring certain quests to be completed, maybe the last hand in of which is at or near the dungeon entrance, would be great but I can honestly see lazy PUGgers even having a problem with that. “must q nowz, need lootz”

I like the idea of going back to the old school way of things. Meet and greet and enter the dungeon by flying there. I wish it was always that way, but I have several beefs with that as well. Lets go over good and bad.

Advantage:

Mounts: A reason to actually have them. I haven’t left Dalaran in months.

Social: It improves social aspects, like being forced to talk to people and being able to find good players on your own realm.

Endurance: If its difficult to get a group together chances are your group will try harder to finish instead of ditching the second something goes wrong.

Ninja: This would lower the chance for ninja looting and overall poor behavior since you gain a reputation on your own server.

Disadvantages:

Lazy People: There is always one person who will say “summon please” after the group is created. They are questing across the zone from the instance and the closest one there.

Once gone…: If a key member like tank or healer leaves the group there is no going back in queue to have somebody else brought to you instantly. It’s a pain in the ass to get another one.

Old is lost: Before the LFG system came out I hadn’t been able to get ANY low level instance groups(even as a tank). It was just questing and grinding all the way to the top.

Lack of players: If you can’t cross server LFG is sevearly limits the pool of players for you to choose from. Which would then automatically take longer to get groups together.

I’m sure there are other points. I just happen to think the GOOD parts of the LFG system outweigh the bad…significantly. The LFG has brought in some annoying things, but it has been more of a benefit to me then it has been a failure.

Dungeon finder is good for finding groups when you’re friends or guildies don’t want to run anything. One can still ask people in trade if they want to run heroics, you can ask your guild or friends. What lfg does is save hours hoping to get a group together where you have to sift through the latest “anal” meme. Sure, you get morons in the group but at least it’s quicker than having to sit at a stone with morons complaining about it taking too long to find that fifth member. DOn’t over use it and it’s not so bad